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2010-08-16: One Summers Too Far
Summary: The X-Men Greet the 4th member of the Summers Clan to the Mansion Location: Xavier Mansion, Foyer Participants: Cable, Cyclops, Emma Frost, Havok, Jean Grey, Marvel Girl Rating: PG for Tobacco Use and Excessive Summers There is a very bright light, and all of a sudden half of the carpet is three shades darker and smells like brine. After the light phases out, there is the mutant named Cable. He bends down to take the swim-fins off of his heavy boots, which make grotesque squishing sounds as he trods along the carpet, leaving waterlogged footprints in his wake. Cable is dressed in a neon-turquoise jumpsuit, adorned with white and gold harnesses. A clear bubble of a helmet incases his head, which is fogging up because of his breath. It is connected to some future SCUBA tank. A giant harpoon is clutched in his left arm, which is embedded with metal shark teeth. "I've seen the future, thanks to Great Whyyte and his band of Submarauders. And let me tell you, Global Warming is real." He removes his helmet, which splashes more possibly radioactive seawater all over the place. "Sustainability, learn it," Cable says to anyone who will listen. The sudden sound of movement and speech in the foyers area just beyond the teacher's offices causes Scott to step out away from grading trig quizes (about his sixth favorite thing to do, though its been a while since he last made a list), to see what the commotion is. After making his way past gathering students, he stares over...and sighs. "Hi Nathan," he says, leaning against the door frame leading into the foyer, offering a half-grin. "Having more mad-cap adventures through time and space." He glances down, his grin turning into a firm frown. "Um...you're...leaking. On our carpet." Pause. "Well, at least you aren't blowing up the garage." Wandering from one portion of the mansion to another with a bottle of water in hand, Alex Summers is paused in mid-stride as Cable makes his dramatic entrance, looking at him with a quizzical expression, before lowering the bottle and shrugging, "I think the Mansion's about as green as we can make it, Nathan." Somewhere in his head he's kind of angry that something like this -isn't- the strangest thing he's seen. "Rough afternoon?" Radioactive seawater? Not for long, with Alex around. Sure, Friday delivery is fine. There will be someone... here..." Jean nearly drops the phone as she turns the corner and sees Nathan coming down the hallway. In that... get up. A squawk from the phone reminds her of its presence. "Yes, sorry. Someone will be here to accept delivery. Good-bye." Clicking the phone off, she approaches Scott and passes him the handset. "They're delivering the new garage doors on Friday," she informs him. "Hi, Nathan. Alex." And then there's someone knocking on the door. It can't be a villain or one of the X-Men's enemies who happens to know where the mansion is. They don't tend to knock. Rachel stands there calmly, not really caring all that much about the chaos she's about to cause by her simple existence. She knocks four times and then waits patiently, hands in her jacket pockets as if this were any routine kind of visit. Except these people have never met her before in their lives. "Honestly," Emma Frost murmurs /just/ loudly enough to be heard as she leans out from behind an ajar door and squints down the hall at Cable and the trail he's leaving behind himself. "I've Montecristos in here--have you any /idea/ what this rank /filth/ you're tracking through the mansion will--hnh." She disappears briefly; when she emerges again, she's clutching a pungent cigar between her index and middle fingers, totally unconcerned for the occasional speck of ash that falls from its lit tip to powder the carpet. She is, as is so common, in white - a suit with a not particularly business-like neckline plunge, a wide-brimmed hat, and sunglasses that, at least, are framed with white - and there is, of course, no trace of any of the ashes having found /her/. "Really, you ought to be more considerate, Nathaniel." Scott nods towards Jean, smiling a bit as he takes the phone reciever. "Oh, good. I think the construction of the actual building is almost done, so should be ready to install them fairly-" That though is cut off by the ding-DONG of the doorbell. Making his way over towards the door, Scott drops the reciever into one of the several chargers strewn around the house. Sniffing the air, he turns his head and frowning at Emma. "You know you shouldn't smoking that inside," he says, realizing it won't make any real difference anyway. "And I really hope you didn't lift that from Logan," he adds before reaching the front door and opening it, most likely to either a UPS delivery, or a lawyer, or an extraordinarily polite supervillain. Nothing earth-shattering or complicating, basically. After casting Cyclops a quick 'okay fine you're my dad' scowl, Cable turns to Alex. He points a white-and-gold gloved finger at the water bottle, "I'll have you know, Havok, that bottled water remains an unregulated industry until the year 2026, and by that time it is way too late." Cable begins picking shark teeth out of his arm and discarding them onto the carpet, as he approached Jean and the door. "Quick delivery. What did you order?" Because he has water in his one human ear, Cable does not immediately hear Emma. He smells her quickly enough, however. "Is that Cuban, Frost?" "Says the woman carrying a lit cigar through the house." Alex comments drolly towards Emma and her admonition of Nathan, jerking a thumb in her direction. His attention turns back to Scott with a smirk, "Logan doesn't smoke anything as expensive as a Montecristo unless someone gives them to them." He leans against a nearby wall, sipping from that bottle of water, and smirking towards Cable, "Good thing it's filled with filtered tap water then, I guess." He sips again, then looks beyond his rather ginormous nephew towards the door. "New doors for the garage," Jean replies to Nathan, her gaze straying to his arm to assess the damage done. "The rebuilding is almost complete." The garage had been blown up a week or so ago, in Mystique's escape attempt. She got away. The cars, and motorcycles, and eco-friendly scooters were not so lucky. With a slight gesture, the discarded shark teeth rise up, out of the snarls of carpet, and into Jean's hand. "One of the kids is going to step on these, Nathan." The teeth are tucked into her pocket for disposal of, later. "Oh, yes," Emma drily says her cigar-free arm loosely wraps just beneath her bust to better support her other elbow, "I, with my prodigious fortune and objectively impeccable taste was so desperate for and incapable of acquiring a proper cigar that I took to rifling through Logan's, which - and this is important, so please, darling, please, listen, pay attention - smell as if they must carry the distinct flavor of vindaloo allowed to ferment in the African sun beneath the territorial markings of a pride of lions, and more than likely cost him about what I might spend on a shoe shining or cocktail." She puts the cigar to her lips, then, and takes a very deep drag from it, making certain to indulge in every layer of its taste and aroma; when she exhales, she flashes a thin, vaguely sincere smile in Scott's direction. "Darling, it's positively adorable when you manage to mix misplaced concern with naivete so sublimely; please, don't hesitate to share further, if you've more insights." With that, she turns her attention to Cable, who gets a simple nod and a slightly - very slightly - broadened smile, as well as a vague gesture towards her door. "Of course they are--anything less would be absurd. If you like, you may have one, sometime--I am /certain/ that with so many superheroes about, the fire hazard shall be slim." Speaking of fire hazards, as Scott opens the door, Rachel blinks for a moment. "Wow, you're younger than I thought you'd be," she says, the first thing in her head and right out her mouth. "Er. Hi. I'm Rachel." She pauses for a moment, swallows once as she hears the voices of Jean and the others inside the house. Shrugging fatalistically, she adds, "I'm your daughter from another timeline, and I don't know why I'm here or how and this is the first place I thought to come find when I realized I wasn't... home... anymore." And then she waits for the inevitable reaction to these statements. "If these kids can't survive a few cybershark teeth in the carpet, Jean, they're not gonna last a damn second in the /future/. You're too easy on them," Cable says grumpily, looking down at his sparking and fizzling robot arm. He nearly winces, but instead his cyber-eye just flashes a bright yellow. As the door opens, and Rachel speaks, Cable drops everything. He cocks his head to the side and takes in what she says. "She looks like a punker. Are you some kind of punker?" He asides to Alex, "I hate punkers." Scott offers a grin over his shoulder at Emma. "Geez, sorry your highness for not exactly having developed a nose for different cigars. Must have something to do with having more respect for my gums and lungs than fine taste." He shrugs slightly. "My lose, prefering fitness over opulence." He offers a mental wink, a towards Emma, a little trick Jean taught him before turning his attention back to the door... And he blinks quite a few times, trying to take that in. "Okay," he says, rather evenly, still processing all that. "I'm sorry, did you say your name was Rachel? Just want to make sure I got that straight. Rachel." He moves aside. "Nathan, this is your half-sister Rachel. Jean, your daughter, Rachel. Alex, niece, Rachel." Short pause. "Emma, I told you to put that out." He seems to be taking this remarkably well. It could have something to do with at least one alternate-reality offspring of one of his better friends already living in the mansion, and his son from the future currently dressing like the treasure hunter found in aquariums flooding his carpet less then twenty feet away. Still, he seems stiff, in shock perhaps, still processing. The freak out will come. "Wait, did I hear that right?" Alex goggles a bit towards Rachel, looking back towards Cable and shaking his head, "I don't think she's a Punker." He pauses, blinking a couple more times as Scott makes his introductions, before rather casually sipping from the water bottle once more, "Guess we better get a room ready?" "I'm sure they'll have plenty of time to toughen up before the /future/, Nathan dear," Jean replies, dryly. And then there's Rachel. Does the parade of Summerses ever cease? Resisting the urge to pinch the bridge of her nose, Jean offers Rachel a warm smile. "Hello there, Rachel. It's lovely to meet you. And, no offense, but... Scott, how you can be sure she's mine? Or, other-me mine? She could /also/ be a clone's daughter, in which case /technically/ she's mine." "What's a punker?" Rachel asks blankly, and then relief erupts at how easily he seems to be taking this. "Hi, Mom," she says with a slight smile to Jean to answer her questions. "Uncle Alex." And then... "Emma." For some reason, her voice drops a few degrees in tone temperature-wise. "Nathan... wait, half-brother?" She looks from Scott to Jean with a raised eyebrow. "Not to get personal five seconds into the acquaintance, but who's /your/ mom? And I can I please come in? I promise I won't blow anything up or give anyone an atomic wedgie. Until tomorrow, anyway." Emma smirks at the elder Summers, in turn; like the wink, there's no physical sign of it. "My mouth and lungs are perfectly fine, poppet--never you mind." She takes another puff, then, but she won't be exhaling a composed, semi-artful cloud of smoke, this time--along with the request to put her cigar out - which she's just roundly ignoring - Scott says something about having a daughter, all of a sudden. She looks at Rachel, then at Scott, at Jean, at Rachel--it takes her a few seconds to properly parse all of this in her head. And then she laughs. Loud, genuine--if not entirely /kind/ laughter. There's a bit of coughing, initially, as the smoke in her lungs is forcibly exhaled, but afterwards she's totally fine to continue cackling. Somewhere, all five of the Stepford Cuckoos suddenly feel a little less loved and none of them know why. As soon as everyone finishes gushing, Cable crosses his arms over his chest, muscles and metal bulging. He grits his teeth and stomps forward, leaving a few more murky bootprints on the carpet. "You believe her? You're just gonna take her at face value? This is the oldest trick in the /book/." He begins breathing heavily, and a vein in his forehead begins bulging. He reaches for a knife sheathed on his leg, "Will you women quit fawning ''and read her mind? Quicker I get to say I told you so, the better." Scott furrows his brow at the laugh-coughing Emma before glancing towards Jean, offering a sheepish smile. "I was assuming; hoping that across time and space, we're still an item," he offers wistfully. Cue the d'awwwwws. And as Rachel confirms his suspicions, Scott point at her, grinning proudly. "See? There we go. She says-" He trails off as Cable moves forward threateningly. It doesn't seem to take much for Scott to get protective as he scowls and puts himself between Cable and the girl. He doesn't say anything, just releases a small flicker of optic blast. He clearly won't let his son take another step forward without some repercussions. Ain't family grand? "Dude. Chill." Alex's voice comments from behind Cable, "Maybe in "the future" (said with much sardonic exaggeration) people randomly pop up on their enemies' doorstep pretending to be their long-lost kid from another dimension, but in the here and now, it's pretty unusual. Also...has a tendency to be true, where we're concerned. You know...-yourself- being a case in point?" He takes a step forward, squeezing by Nathan and offering a hand to Rachel, "Nice to meet you, Rachel. Pay no attention to our resident maniacal laughing woman." "Well, I hadn't started fawning, /yet/. Maybe after she gets settled in, I can braid her hair and spoil her with hot chocolate and cookies." While Scott handles his son, Jean steps forwards towards Rachel. She's still ignoring Emma, quite thoroughly. "Nathan does have a point, though." Reaching up, Jean gently brushes back a lock of Rachel's red hair. Okay, she's fawning. A little. «Let's have a look at your noggin?» When Nathan comes up with the hand-toward-knife motion, Rachel's immediately on guard, her calm behavior still present, but now, she warns him off with a, "I wouldn't." Her stance has shifted into one better suited for fighting, and while she doesn't unleash the visible-from-orbit aspects of her powers, a faint blue firebird appears over her left eye. But then, Alex seems to have taken things a lot better, and she begins to relax, taking his hand and shaking it with a firmer grip than most women her age would manage. And then Jean is there, and Rachel relaxes entirely, almost trustingly. And she wafts a hand in front of her nose for a moment. «No one here but us chickens...» Emma doesn't stop laughing when Cable suggests mind probing, not when she's referred to as maniacal, not--for a while, likely; she /does/ take one last look between Rachel and Jean as the latter initiates telepathy with a seemingly fond moment of physical contact, and that only seems to add to the mirthful fire as she strolls away. The laughter will probably echo through the hallways for the next five or six minutes to come. Responding to Cyclops, Havok and Rachel all in one, Cable simply says, "I would. And will." His own left eye flashes as Scott's visor flares to life, but he doesn't step forward, or backward, for that matter. "This whole thing's gonna be your funeral, not mine," he says at Alex and Scott, "Don't say I didn't warn you." For now he just stands slightly behind Cyclops, muscles tensed. His hand still rests on the handle of the knife, but it's not removed from the sheath. "What's the verdict, Jean? Is she resisting?" Scott continues to remain silent, merely eyeballing Cable for a few long moments. He then turns his head slowly, brow softening. He waits for Jean's answer...wanting to know the truth. Alex steps aside to allow Jean room to "work" as it were, taking up a position beside Scott and between the ladies and Cable, asiding to Scott, "They must not have decaf in the future." «No, we're much scarier than chickens.» Jean flashes Rachel a grin. As if the glowing blue firebird wasn't enough, her brain checks out just fine. Turning, she gives a reassuring thumbs up. "She's your sister, all right. Well, half-sister. Sort of. Whatever. She's not lying, or resisting. There'll be no stabbing of our guests today." And then Rachel does the grown-up thing and sticks her tongue out at Nathan, but then she grins to ward off the childishness. "It's really weird, seeing all of you this young," she admits, including Alex in the statement. "Time's messed up between where I came from and here... But you're still pretty much the same people. It's just... weird." "''Young?" Cable removes his hand from the knife and pushes past Cyclops. "I don't know you. Or remember you. From anything I've read." He places his hands on his hips and looks over at Jean. "She's either some sort of bio-weapon we can't even come close to understanding, or she's telling the truth. There's no gray area. That's why it's just... weird." Scott relaxes some as Jean confirms Rachel is who she says she is, calm enough to not notice that he's being pushed aside. Frowning slightly, he glances towards Alex. "Am I ever this unbearable?" he asks, before glancing towards Nathan and blinking. "YOU think this is weird?" he says. THAT actually concerns him more than anything. He inches over towards where Jean is standing as he nods towards Rachel. "Judging by how old you are, yes, that seem logical. Jean and I would have to..." he starts, only to trail off. "You can do the math," he mutters, before reaching out, taking Jean's hands and squeezing it slightly. «Well you WERE talking babies,» he jokes telepathically. Alex can't help but grin a touch at Scott's question, "All I'm saying, is that he -definitely- doesn't get it from his mother." He moves back around Nathan, "Well, I've gotta monitor the study hall this evening. Guess we'll have to catch up later, Rachel. Nice to meet you." He comments as he starts to head out of the foyer. Nonchalant about it all? Well, maybe. He -is- weirded out, but well...it's not the first time. «Yes, and you were having a panic attack.» Unlike her future-alternate-timeline offspring, Jean does resist the urge to stick her tongue out at Scott. Because she's the grown-up. "She's telling the truth," Jean assures Nathan. "But it is still weird. Then again, pretty much every minute of every day is weird lately, so..." She shrugs. "I'm going to get a room ready for you, Rachel. The girls' dorms are just down the hall and to the right." "Well, at least that's the same..." Rachel says with a quiet sigh, smiling as Jean goes to get her set up with a room. "If the fourth one down on the right is free..." she suggests in a way that indicates that where she's from, that was her room. Then she starts looking around the place for any 'changes'. And settles on Cable. "You still didn't answer my question... half-brother," she reminds him gently. No consternation, no angst about her parents, nothing. Just waves to Alex as it seems he's wandering off as well. "And why's it smell like a ship's bilge in here?" she queries, sniffing once. "It was intentional," Cable says, pushing past Rachel and walking out the door. As he passes, of course, the briny smell becomes much stronger. "We might talk later. But know this," the time-displaced soldier says, turning to face his half-sister. There's a flash of yellow from his left eye, "I've got my /eye/ on you." Scott offers a slight wave to Alex. "Give 'em 'ell," he instructs with a grin before scowling towards Nathan, flashing his own eyes again just for a second. "Don't worry about him. He's just cranky because he's a son of a clone." He glances towards Rachel again, offering a sheepish grin. "I'll...explain all that. And you can share your story." A slight pause. "You like milkshakes? I know a place in Salem Center, banana-strawberry mix that is one of a kind. My treat, Rachel." Rachel Summers points both of her fingers at her eyes and then switches her hand around to point a single finger at Cable, a military-style signal that indicates she's gonna have both her eyes on him. "A... clone?" Rachel queries of Scott, taken aback slightly. "ooooooookay then." But the mention of milkshakes causes her to nod with a grin. "Those're my favorite, if there's a little chocolate in it too." "Watch it," Scott says, stern-faced very suddenly. "Push your luck, and you get no milkshake at all." After a few moments, the stern look fades away into a wide grin, as Scott tries to send the mental wink, see if Rachel takes more after her mom or her dad. "Let me just grab my wallet upstairs, back in a sec," he says, before turning to start bounding up the stairs two-at-a-time. Clearly, he's energized. Rachel Summers doesn't think she's ever seen her dad leap up the stairs like that, so a rather bemused expression lives on her face for some time as she waits for him to get back. The mental wink is received, and a bit of a gleeful feeling is her response. Category:Logs